Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Back in May, I wrote a post about the vapidness of the Tucson radio landscape. Back then I told you about the Mike and Chuckshow on 1290 AM:

Here's roughly how each segment goes. Mike introduces a topic and gives his take. Chuck agrees with Mike and then re-sets the take. Mike and Chuck spend five or six minutes complementing each other for the thoughtfulness and social compassion they demonstrate in their take, then they go to commercial.

It appears the market has finally spoken. A few weeks ago, Chuck disappeared from the Mike and Chuck show, but kept his rest-of-the-day job as the station program manager. Here's a quote attributed to Chuck in Tucson Weekly, our local arts, dining, entertainment and revolutionary socialism rag:

I told my managers earlier in the year that I wanted to devote more time to myself.

Right, Chuck. I too want to spend more time with me. The other day, the other shoe dropped. The voice of the ever-whiny Mike is also gone from the Tucson airwaves. AM 1290 dropped in an encore airing of armageddonistGlenn Beck druing drive-time while they await the launch of the new Dan Patrick radio show. Beck is often maniacally funny, but I always get out of the car looking for snipers on the rooftops and terrorists in the Safeway.

The moral of the story? Folks want to be entertained and/or enlightened during their drive to work, not bummed out and lectured to by guys with the same predictable and pessimistic take every day.